Tyrolean Retrospect

Will he remember this? we wondered. In
your pushchair from the Hahnenkamm you stare:
distant peaks like blossom spike clear air
that tinkles cowbells, burnishes your skin.

I turn the page: dirndl and lederhosen,
wrought iron shop-signs, flowering balconies,
falls of green pasture draped with Alpine trees;
the Golden Roof; small figures on the frozen

tongue of the Grossglockner glacier; ledged
chunks of schloss from the Imperial cake;
a Salzburg palace mirrored in blue lake.
All sifted to this album. Double-edged,

the foreignness - north meaning Germany;
bitte and danke - was entrancing fable
owed no living duty, so destabil-
izing us because it set us free
...